my confusion: hi, so lets say i rip a cd with one burner, flac and cue style, and then do the same cd but with another burner, should there be the same crc hash? is the hashes are different, how can they both be lossless?i am probably not understanding something here... but could someone explain it please?or should a certain cd always give a certain crc, for a wav at least, and then different people will get a different crc due to their pc encoding the wav to flac under slighty different condtions?help! thank you very much.

i meant drive yeah!ummm.... i deleted my old drives copy, so hmmm..but if i rip a cd to flac and cue then rip it again the exact same way (same drive), can i get different crc's with them both being lossless/as accurate as each other?

No, you cannot have different CRCs when ripping with the same drive (and same method of CRC calculation and with offset correction unchanged) with both versions being accurate. If the CRCs are different then at least one of the rips will not be accurate.

adding on from this, sure it is old, but it is mine, and the the same information remains so, adding on from that, the offset of the drive would matter in the cry of RIPPED files? do you mean the offset correction unchanged, so, it being changed (and now not correct) would give you incorrect rips? (that makes sense).

and, when the wav file is compressed to flac, say using level 8, the resulting crc would be the same each time? i think i may have asked this once upon a time but i cannot find it. thank you.

I'm not sure if I understood your questions but I'll try to answer them.

QUOTE (joshuatm @ Nov 17 2012, 21:56)

so, adding on from that, the offset of the drive would matter in the cry of RIPPED files?

Yes, if you change the read offset in the drive you will get ripped files with different CRCs.

QUOTE (joshuatm @ Nov 17 2012, 21:56)

do you mean the offset correction unchanged, so, it being changed (and now not correct) would give you incorrect rips? (that makes sense).

It would give ripped files with different CRCs from the ripped files you would get with the "correct" read offset for the drive. The rip may still be considered accurate if you use something like CUETools to verify the rip against the AccurateRip database, since, all other things being equal, the audio data would only have been shifted by a few samples (similar to a different pressing of the CD).

QUOTE (joshuatm @ Nov 17 2012, 21:56)

and, when the wav file is compressed to flac, say using level 8, the resulting crc would be the same each time?

If you compress a wav file to flac, and then decompress that flac back to wav, the CRCs of the audio data of the two wav files will be the same, because flac is lossless. If you use a lossless codec, you can compress/decompress as many times as you wish and the audio CRC will never change.

what i meant is, if i use one drive, with a different offset (yet, it is the 'correct offset' for that drive), and another drive, with a different correct offset, but yet again, correct for that drive, both drives would rip the same wave files, with the same crds (hopefully, provided everything went well)i think i just answered my own question

and, yes ok, i understand that part, being lossless, flac -> wav etc, but say i compress a wave with a flac, and another day, a different computer maybe, i compress that same wave to another flac, using the same compression settings. those flacs themselves, do they necessarily have the same crc?i understand when you covert them back to wav that they will/should have the same crc, but, in flac, would they?

The flacs themselves can be different depending on machine doing the compression (ex: AMD vs. Intel). This appears to have been the case with previous versions, at least. If they decompress the same I don't see that it matters all that much.